Internal exFAT drives and boot lock

[dylancyr]

So I just recently bought a 3TB Seagate Barracuda drive, and when I booted to windows, it didn't recognize it, even in the disk manager. So I restart, boot into my mac drive, which recognizes it, and I format it to exFAT. I restart my computer to see if it shows up in windows, and it won't boot, I can't even get into the bios.

I'm using an Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz on a Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H-WB WIFI

I currently also have two 500GB drives running on a Raid 1, which this 3TB was supposed to replace.

I've tried unhooking everything except my macHD and the new drive, and it still won't boot. I also tried one with the windows HD and the new drive, and nothing. If I unplug the SATA connector but leave the power plugged in, it will boot so I know its not a power issue.

I believe it's an issue with the exFAT formatting. I changed one of the SATA ports to a hot port in my bios so I can plug the drive in while the computer is on, and it will show up. I formatted it back to NTFS - no problems. Booted to MAC no problems, reformatted back to exFAT and again stuck at bios boot screen and frozen. Turned off and disconnected the drive, turned it on, then plug it in while windows was live, and it works like a charm. Anyone have any idea why this might be?

I read it might be an MBR formatted drive, so I cleaned it again and made sure it was GPT, and this time formatted IN windows 8 to exFAT and still no dice. I also read somewhere that Windows 8 will not recognize an ex-FAT formatted drive internally, only through USB. Is that true?

 

[dylancyr]

Bump - as of yet no one can tell me why having an exFAT formatted internal drive doesn't allow a computer to boot! Please help!

 

[buddam]

I just have the same issue with 3 TB and Gigabyte GA-Q77M-D2H MB . It's weird. I ended up reformatting the drive and fixed it. I don't know why

 

[buddam]

i found this thread which was very helpful .

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4154638?start=0&tstart=0

 

[caru]

Same issue here, the disk is a 3Tb Western digital (WD30EZRX Caviar Green), the system is the one in the signature.
I wanted to use ExFat because the disk is shared between OSX and Windows, and I wanted a disk that could be read/written by both systems. I'm giving up, all the attempts I've made brought to nothing.

If the disk is formatted as ExFAT, the system won't boot.
I've been spending hours to find a good solution, and I haven't found anything other than reformatting the disk into a different file system.
Not even the "fsck_exfat -d disk" made the trick, I always get a "Bad File Descriptor" error that I couldn't manage to overcome.

If any of you has found a solution in the mean time, it would be highly appreciated.

 

[Bob_the_Tomato]

Not even the "fsck_exfat -d disk" made the trick, I always get a "Bad File Descriptor" error that I couldn't manage to overcome.

Is it safe to assume that you actually replaced the word "disk" with your actual disk descriptor? Something like "disk0s4" or "disk1s2" - just checking. If not, use DiskUtil to show the actual disk descriptor for YOUR setup and add it to the command.

 

[bigmacs]

Same issue here, the disk is a 3Tb Western digital (WD30EZRX Caviar Green), the system is the one in the signature.
I wanted to use ExFat because the disk is shared between OSX and Windows, and I wanted a disk that could be read/written by both systems. I'm giving up, all the attempts I've made brought to nothing.

If the disk is formatted as ExFAT, the system won't boot.
I've been spending hours to find a good solution, and I haven't found anything other than reformatting the disk into a different file system.
Not even the "fsck_exfat -d disk" made the trick, I always get a "Bad File Descriptor" error that I couldn't manage to overcome.

If any of you has found a solution in the mean time, it would be highly appreciated.

As finicky as customacs can be even when using the usual OSX file system, I'd avoid using ExFat as your boot partition. I don't think it was meant for that. Use the OSX file system for your boot partition, and use a separate partition in ExFat to transfer files between your different OS's.

 

[caru]

Is it safe to assume that you actually replaced the word "disk" with your actual disk descriptor? Something like "disk0s4" or "disk1s2" - just checking. If not, use DiskUtil to show the actual disk descriptor for YOUR setup and add it to the command.

yep, of course I replaced the descriptor with my actual one, but there must be something wrong that I don't really get.

As finicky as customacs can be even when using the usual OSX file system, I'd avoid using ExFat as your boot partition. I don't think it was meant for that. Use the OSX file system for your boot partition, and use a separate partition in ExFat to transfer files between your different OS's.

I didn't mean to use the ExFat disk as a boot disk. To boot I use a simple ssd setup (Mac Os Extended -journaled)... the 3Tb mechanical ExFat disk is supposed to be used as a storage disk, shared between Mac OSX and Windows that I'm planning to install soon on a further SSD.
But nothing worked so far.

thanks anyway for your replies

 

[ejdzej]

Caru,

I have the same exact problem, and I've been searching for solution for weeks. I found some mentions of Chameleon having limitation of 1TB for storage drives in some very old posts, but no real details in any new posts. If you found a solution to this problem, I would appreciate it very much. Thanks.

UPDATE:
Upgraded my BIOS, reinstalled OSX using Clover this time, and 4tb storage works now.

 

[spensb75]

So I couldn't get exFAT to work on my build either but I found a workaround if you have Windows 8/8.1/10. Format your hard drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) then boot up Windows. https://www.paragon-software.com/home/hfs-windows-free/ This is Paragon's software that allows you to access HSF+ drives through windows. They offer a Windows 10 version for 20 bucks but I just used the 8/8.1 free version and it works perfectly on Windows 10 for me. At installation there should be a button to get a free serial number/activation code which they email you. You should be able to read and write from both Mac and Windows